FAMST 242GS: GAME STUDIES

University of California, Santa Barbara

Provides a general, graduate-level introduction to the academic field of ga me studies, ideal for students working on interactive digital media objects or platforms and/or cultures of play. We will discuss select foundational texts in order to consider the field’s initially contested relationship to literary and film studies and turn-of-the-century new media theory. We will also examine a plethora of recent work that simultaneously expands and cri tiques canonical game studies through the lenses of the analog, race, queer theory, feminism, ecology, affect, historical preservation, and labor. Stu dents will be encouraged to read and play, and to consider research, presen tation, and pedagogical methods specific to this field.